To date only GB-1 and GB-2 abilities have been revealed but I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see cards printed with GB-3 and GB-4 later in the series. For now though, with the existence of Persona Stride (stride units that also flip a second copy face up on use) the actual difference in when the current GB-1 and GB-2 activate is negligible so you can consider them both to be "active" after your first stride.
Generation Break is largely viewed as slow, effectively giving your rear-guards a speed reduction in the manner of Limit Break era but just how slow is it? In theory you can activate it as soon both you and your opponent are at grade 3 - just like Legion so where is the issue?
| #Stride Enablers | Chance of 2 after draw 4 |
| 1 | 0.00% |
| 2 | 3.06% |
| 3 | 8.27% |
| 4 | 14.90% |
| 5 | 22.36% |
| 6 | 30.20% |
| 7 | 38.08% |
| 8 | 45.74% |
| 9 | 53.00% |
| 10 | 59.74% |
| 11 | 65.88% |
| 12 | 71.39% |
| 13 | 76.27% |
| 14 | 80.52% |
The numbers here are not 100% precise as it strips out any intent to specifically mulligan for grade 3's but it gives us a good indication to go by. When a basic deck consisting of 8 grade 3's is considered, you will have under a 50% chance of having a spare in hand when you reach the earliest possible point of striding - poor reliability indeed.
We can boost this to over 70% by including what is best called a "stride enabler" in our decks; a grade 1 which counts as 3 grades worth of cards when discarded for stride costs. The math there goes a bit fuzzy though as while you might pull both a grade 3 and that grade 1 stride enabler; you might have has to use that grade 1 as your ride early on. To give a better approximation let us also factor in the odds of successfully riding without G-Assist.
| # Grade 3's | ||||||||||
| #Stride Enablers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 1 | 0.00% | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2 | 0.72% | 1.28% | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 3 | 1.95% | 3.47% | 4.65% | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 4 | 3.51% | 6.25% | 8.37% | 10.01% | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 5 | 5.27% | 9.38% | 12.57% | 15.02% | 16.90% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 6 | - | 12.67% | 16.97% | 20.29% | 22.82% | 24.75% | - | - | - | - |
| 7 | - | - | 21.40% | 25.58% | 28.78% | 31.21% | 33.04% | - | - | - |
| 8 | - | - | - | 30.72% | 34.57% | 37.49% | 39.69% | 41.34% | - | - |
| 9 | - | - | - | - | 40.05% | 43.44% | 45.99% | 47.91% | 49.33% | - |
| 10 | - | - | - | - | - | 48.96% | 51.84% | 54.00% | 55.60% | 56.79% |
| 11 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 57.17% | 59.55% | 61.32% | 62.63% |
| 12 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 64.53% | 66.45% | 67.87% |
| 13 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 70.99% | 72.50% |
| 14 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 76.54% |
From this we get a more balanced view as to the likelihood of being able to stride using just one card on the turn you reach grade 3, without having had to drop cards due to G-Assist. In general you will be looking at a 50/50 chance if running 6 grade 3's and a 65% when running 8, not terrible, but certainly not reliable.
As such if you want to activate your Generation Break abilities quickly you need to be prepared in your game plan to discard two cards for an early stride. When you ride grade 3 if going second you will have seen just 9 cards and used three up in riding. By discarding two to stride early this leaves you with just four cards in the early game to mount an attack or defense - three if you need to G-Assist.
Initial thoughts would be that this makes an early stride very suicidal and that Generation Break is only going to be active late game when compared to Legion; and for many decks that will indeed be the case. But you can still create a fast deck with Generation Break. The secret there is that you need to be able to fill your field without using your hand, or draw lots of cards to refill your hand.
As such Generation Break is going to be far more useful to clans such as Royal Paladin and Oracle Think Tank and should be viewed as something to splash into other decks conservatively when the strength of the ability granted warrants it.
No comments:
Post a Comment